Sunday, July 16, 2006

Akbar Ganji Calls for 3-day Hunger Strike in solidarity with Iranian Political Prisoners

The human rights situation in Iran continues to deteriorate. Petitions and protests to end the abuses have gone unanswered. During the past year, Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s government has continued the Islamic Republic's policy of monopolising power in Iran by silencing all independent and dissenting voices. The suppression of demonstrators in Azerbaijan, Khuzestan, and Kurdistan, the silencing of labor, women, and student movements and the vicious attacks on demonstrators throughout the past year, are all evidence of the ongoing and abhorrent human rights violations by the Islamic Republic of Iran. By arresting and imprisoning intellectuals, lawyers, political activists, and labour leaders and by forcing the early retirement of dozens of University professors, Ahmadinejad’s government is pursing polices that are reminiscent of some of the darkest days of the Islamic Republic.

In such an atmosphere, Iran’s democracy movement calls for the unity and support of people of conscience from around the world. Without such unity, there is little hope of stemming the appalling human rights violations in Iran and the growing authoritarianism of regime.

In response to this deteriorating situation, we the undersigned lend our support and welcome the suggestion of Akbar Ganji – Iran’s leading dissent intellectual who was recently freed after 2222 days of imprisonment – for a global hunger strike that demands the release of three prominent political prisoners namely: Ali Akbar Mousavi Khoeni, a student leader and former member of parliament, Dr Ramin Jahanbegloo, a philosopher, professor and public intellectual and Mansour Osanloo, a prominent labor leader and executive director of the Worker’s Syndicated Union.

Additionally, we demand the immediate and unconditional release of all political detainees from the Islamic Republic’s jails but we specifically demand the release of the above mentioned persons who represent various groups of prisoners of conscience in Iran. Should their release not be secured, we, the undersigned, will begin a co-ordinated global hunger strike from July 14 through July 16, 2006 to draw attention to our demands. We ask for the support and solidarity of people from around the world who share our goals for a democratic Iran and an immediate end to all violations of human rights.

No comments:

On the tomb of the nineteenth century Church historian Bishop Mandel Creighton are inscribed the words: ‘He tried to write true history.’

Like the bishop – who was a member of my own college at Oxford – I believe that there is such a thing as ‘true history’.

What happened in the past is unalterable and definite. To uncover it – or as much of it as possible – the historian has several tools, among them chronology, documentation, memoirs, and the vast apparatus of scholarly work in which others have delved and laboured in the same vineyard.